PreHealth Spotlight: Joseph Homsi

Class year: 2014
Major: Microbiology

The reality is that a career in medicine takes a lot of time and sacrifice, but it is tremendously rewarding and will allow you to serve others in a way that many people cannot.

Vitals

• Fourth-year medical student at UMass Medical School

Two years ago, I wrote an article for the Pre-Med/Pre-Health newsletter about my experiences at UMass Amherst and how they prepared me to apply for medical school. Fast forward to today and I’m now a fourth-year medical student in the final months of medical school and would like to share with you my experiences as a medical student at UMass Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

As a first-year medical student, the transition can be challenging. Beginning in a new school in a new town and learning the best way to absorb an immense amount of information takes some time. Fortunately, UMass Medical school did a wonderful job easing the transition. With personal house mentors who were there to guide me each step of the way, as well as almost weekly events that brought our student body together, there was no shortage of encouragement and assistance within our community to help us get through the long days of studying. Additionally, in order to help prevent students from stressing about grades, UMass makes its classes pass/fail, which allowed us to focus on learning and understanding medicine instead of competing with each other.

Once I learned the normal physiology and anatomy of the human body during my first year of medical school, I began to study how these normal processes can go awry during my second year. Using an “organ-based system approach,” second- year students learn about a wide range of diseases, how they present clinically (i.e. symptoms and physical exam findings), and how we can diagnose as well as treat them. The second year ends with a notoriously challenging board exam called “Step 1,” which tests both scientific and medical knowledge from the first two years of medical school. UMass does a wonderful job preparing its students for Step 1 by administering exams that have previous Step 1 questions, as well as offering advisors to help us organize a plan to study for the exam. In this way, I was able to constantly get practice and become more experienced at answering the exam’s challenging questions.

After completing Step 1 (and of course having a much-needed vacation with med school friends shortly after to celebrate), I began my third year of medical school and finally put what I’ve learned to practice. I worked in almost every field of medicine, including Internal Medicine, Neurology, Surgery, Anesthesiology, OB/GYN, Psychiatry, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics. Personally, I feel like the joys of medical school truly began during my third year. I was able to finally speak with patients, make diagnoses, decide on treatments, and work with a team instead of sitting in a lecture hall or library for most of my day. While the third year did sometimes mean early mornings and late nights, it also meant I was finally actually doing what I came to medical school for: learning to be a physician. While it was critical for me to build a strong foundation of knowledge during my first two years of medical school, there was still a sea of information that I learned by directly treating patients.

During my four year of medical school, I was able to design my own schedule to do what I am most interested in. After rotating through all fields of medicine, I have come to most appreciate the role that anesthesiologists have in medicine. From their responsibilities in the operating room to the pain clinic, from the labor and delivery floors to the intensive care units, I was drawn to the fast-paced field of anesthesiology and decided I want to be part of patients’ lives in a meaningful way by serving as their anesthesiologist. As a result, I’ve completed several months working in anesthesiology, including at UMass, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. All of these institutions allowed me to further explore the field that I am most passionate about and learn from experts in the community.

With the help of my mentors at UMass, I’ve crafted my application for residency programs and am excited to begin the interview process. UMass Medical has helped me grow to become the student I am today as well as into the physician I will soon be this coming summer. To all the pre-medical students out there striving for that coveted medical school acceptance letter: stay dedicated, be focused, and have a plan each day that will help you reach your goals. The reality is that a career in medicine takes a lot of time and sacrifice, but it is tremendously rewarding and will allow you to serve others in a way that many people cannot. If you feel medicine is your calling, chase after it with confidence, passion, and commitment. After going down the long road of being a pre-medical and then medical student, I can confidently say I can’t imagine doing anything else in life. It’s a privilege and honor to be welcomed by others into their lives, and I am excited to soon serve patients as their physician.

Published October 2017